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Tim

Tim

Stumbling upon Droid Life randomly after purchasing a Motorola DROID in late 2009, then setting out to learn everything he could about Android, Tim quickly became an integral part of the site's comment section. After quite some time of strictly commenting on Droid Life, Tim was offered an opportunity to write feature stories for the site, such as custom ROM overviews, as well as interviews with Android community members. Following success of those, Tim became a full time writer and editor for Droid Life, now spending his time on news articles, device reviews, producing videos, and much more. Tim currently resides in Portland, OR with his longtime girlfriend and two wonderful dog children (Loki & Thor). In his spare time, Tim enjoys playing guitar, drinking coffee, practicing photography, and destroying kids on Call of Duty.

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131 Comments

  • The only way to get Skype to actually stay logged off and disabled in Android is to uninstall it (or Greenify it). So it’s really frustrating to see it as a preloaded app. Hopefully you’re able to disable it as needed.

  • Who cares is what I think. Hopefully their reduced touchwiz bloat isn’t this gimmick. I root my Samsung devices and wipe that crap off and the janky lag never went away on my s3 or note 3 unless I ran a custom ROM.

  • I dont know about excited, but it doesnt tick me off either. But still, I am going to need something to take the Edge off, you know?
    Straight, no chaser.

  • I’d prefer that carriers or OEMs include links to their apps. You can uninstall the shortcut if you don’t want it and if you click it, it would take you to the store to install.

  • Why is WhatsApp included? I found that on my wife’s phone one time when she was complaining it seemed slower than normal so I removed it not knowing what it was and thinking it looked fishy.

  • When i updated my phone to 5.0 i got 5 more Google apps(that i had not installed previously). So we are ready to sit down and say ok to this. But whenever Samsung, HTC, LG etc adds some app that attempts for extra functionality then we scream BLOATWARE

  • Very misleading title, read it as ONLY 2 APPS being preinstalled not just two Samsung apps and then keeping the galaxy apps separate as well as junk like fb and Skype. Even the list has 9 and a few of those are bundles…there is going to be a ton of apps pre installed.

  • Granted, no one likes bloatware. I especially hate Verizon’s apps, but they trick people into paying monthly charges (Caller Name ID, VZ Navigator, NFL Mobile (the only one worth having on the phone)). They’ll never take an app off the bloat menu if it’s making them money, come on now it’s Verizon (or AT&T, or to a lesser extent Sprint, and T-Mo). The issue here is that they’re not catering to Android nerds or power users, or whatever we want to call ourselves. They’re catering to a MUCH larger demographic. We’re the overwhelming minority in this game even if we feel we should be catered to first. Yes, we know about the technology, how smartphones work, how carriers work, etc, but as far as sheer numbers go there are 99 regular people to every one of us. I’m not trying to justify VZW, or bloatware, trust me, I feel the same way as most about these things. Unfortunately the 1% doesn’t get special treatment this time.

  • With TW, it’s not really the preinstalled apps that’s the real issue. The real issue is all those “features” that most never use like Smart Scroll or whatever crap they invented since.

  • still bloated. facebook and whatsapp?? seriously?? facebook has 1 billion install and yet it come preinstalled.
    S- voice is bloatware and microsoft apps?? seriously

  • Title of this article is completely misleading..

    There are 2 Samsung apps, 1 Samsung Suite app which can spawn more apps and 5 other preloaded apps. Not 2 like the title says. I don’t count Google Apps as preloaded bloat.

      • Yup, I totally uninstall the Play Store the second I get my phones. Total bloatfest.. Its a horrible app that is a gateway to more and more bloat.

        /s

        • Total dumb response. I meant apps that come pre-installed that people don’t use, it could be maps, Gmail, Google+, photos etc. But I see you didn’t get that

          • Every phone has bloat. Certain Google apps can be bloat to some degree. Even iphone when they have preinstalled apps like safari, itunes, and u2 music. (those are the ones i can think on top of my head)

          • And you also can’t disable the stock ticker on an iPhone in the notification shade. Kinda surprised that Apple force-feeds that down people’s throats.

          • you can disable stock ticker on iphones it’s disabled on mine. I think it might be defaulted as on.

        • I thrown my phone out of the windows once I got it, to completely live free of bloatware.

    • It isn’t misleading at all. Galaxy Apps is like Samsung’s play store. If you don’t use it then you won’t have bloat. It won’t automatically spawn other apps.

  • Not bad Samsung. The only one I question is FB, even if I do use Facebook I would not want it preinstalled.

  • They will all be hidden in Samsung’s own app store and not pushed to google play…the preloaded Samsung apps will have features to enable or disable the rest of the preloaded bloat. I just hope a 32gb base model is standard with at least 20-25gb available for user space

  • Great news to hear. But TW has to be drastically toned down for me to go Samsung again. I love my note 4 but damn am I tired of TW. I just hate that I have to go with TW to get the best screen and camera in a phone.

  • My wife has an S4 and i’m curious, is the Samsung stock Gallery app as choppy on the S5 as it is on her S4? I sideloaded the gallery off my Moto X for her and that one is blazing fast, but she can’t use the “hover to preview” and stuff like that.

        • I agree that they are bloats since I don’t use the Microsoft apps or services listed. Most people who want or need them can get them through the app store. That’s what the app store is for.

          • It is absolutely uninstallable. It’s in the /system/ folder and unless you have true root, you can’t get rid of it. Every Android phone I’ve ever owned had apps that can’t be uninstalled and until ICS came out, couldn’t be disabled either.

        • You can actually completely uninstall applications on Samsung phones without root. It’s how AT&T and Verizon Note owners have debloated.

          Or just disable.

      • I am in the minority that doesn’t use Facebook. I can’t see why one can’t be given a list of “free” optional apps (like Facebook) to select from during the initial setup that will be installed. Why force them on the user adding to app clutter and wasting ROM/RAM?

      • Can’t uninstall it if it resides in /system/ which is usually where it is. Can only disable it.

    • Lol. One of the reasons you aren’t getting a phone is because it comes with facebook? (which you can remove btw)

      • considering it’s already installed on the phone. I highly doubt you can just remove it. You don’t see HTC, Sony or LG have that on their flagship phone.

  • And when you get your Verizon variant, you will power it, activate it, and it will “require” important software updates “before use.”

      • I don’t get why Samsung doesn’t act like Apple and just say no. It would make Androids experience better for users who don’t really know what they are doing.

        • Because like it or not, nothing gets people into the stores quite like an iPhone. Until an Android phone is released that people camp out for 3 days in advance to get on launch day Apple is also going to get preferential treatment and more of a say with the carriers.

          • You are kidding right? Go watch clips from NYC from the iPhone 6 launch. Lines were full of poor men and women who were hired to sit in line and buy phones for rich people.

          • I went to check out the iPhone 6 on release day at the Apple store and they had 50 people in line; this was at 7pm in the evening. But this is understandable because they only have one launch day for the iPhone so of course everyone wants to get upgraded.

            And if you’re close to upgrading I know for Verizon they let you upgrade a few weeks early just in case you had to wait for stock from the last time you upgraded. Apple yearly cycle is not exact but the carriers will give you leeway.

          • I love watching the iPhone release. They line up at the Apple store in the mall while Verizon, AT&T and Sprint sit there with no customers, yet the idiots rather wait to get it at the Apple store.

          • I I was in NYC that day with some buddies on out motorcycles. The amount of people that either don’t work or have nothing better to do was insane.

          • Nobody will camp for Android phones because a flagship Android phone comes out every every other month. They only get one every year. =p

          • Camping out at a store must be a coastal thing, here in the midwest we just wait till the store opens and go in and buy it, we don’t wait all night to do the same thing we can do when the store opens. I have only seen people camp out for one thing and that was concert tickets in the 90’s like the first Lollapalooza, I got to see the concert and didn’t camp out for tickets either.

        • The worst is that multiple times now I know someone who has just bought their first smartphone on VZW and I see them using Vzw messenger to text bc it uses that be default.

      • Why though? Apple tells carriers to go F*ck themselves and Samsung is just as big as Apple so why can’t they do the same.

        • Because Apple had leverage with the iPhone exclusivity on AT&T – the other carriers wanted that phone and were willing to meet Apple’s terms to get it.

      • THIS. i dont really care if they bloat it with apps, as long as i can uninstall them. Not just disable them, but uninstall them.

      • “All of which will be installed to /system/ and will be unremoveable!”

        This is a 100% certainty. In the era of the app store, these apps should be user installable or completely removable. Most users just leave the bloatware because it is difficult to determine what’s essential to the proper function of the phone and what is not.

      • That is exaclty what happened to me when I initially set up my Turbo. I hate the red apps too, and not even subconsciously.

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